The Creator Framework:
Doing what you enjoy using AI tools, social media and e-commerce platforms.
“Doing what you love” has always been mystified as something only a rare few can do and for the rest of us, you do it at the cost of material success.
But in 2024, there’s an almost perfect framework for doing what you love and making a living from it.
Passion + Platform + Productize
There’s a lot of people on the internet talking about it. I call it the Creator Framework.
The most straightforward path to monetising your passions is exactly what every rich and famous internet person like the Kylie Jenners have been doing all along. It was much easier for them to manage to get a head start because they already had entire teams to help manage their systems, but with the recent explosion in online tools that are designed to make us a more productive species, anybody can do it with a good enough phone and internet connection.
All it takes is them building a brand around themselves or being credible in a certain area of expertise. They either join the economy having already built authority on a topic offline like Alex Hormozi or Andrew Tate or they build credibility on the platform by teaching As they learn, like Hamza and Dan Koe.
A content creator’s audience is always people who are one or several levels of awareness below them with regard to that area of expertise.
There are 4 types of content creators who eventually transition into entrepreneurs:
1. The synthesiser — this person learns a bunch of information, then remixes it to be relevant and actionable to his audience. They study a variety of concepts and create new concepts from those. Like I did, with this “Creator Typology” system. The way they usually Monetise is by selling their more advanced teachings either as a product, service or membership.
2. The curator — this person collects a bunch of information on a certain topic, then evaluates it’s usefulness, importance, relevance, etc. they don’t create any new info, they’re just reporting on the quality of information.
3. Technical trainer — this person studies and experiments with a bunch of different tools relevant to their Niche and teaches other people how to use those tools (at scale)
4. Reporter — this person stays up-to-date on recent news in their Niche and just tries to provide fresh happenings frequently. They’re not obligated to comment or provide new perspectives, their content just has to be new. Not even necessarily novel, just new. For example, the people who were doing daily updates on Andrew Tate while he was in prison established themselves as reporters simply by reading news daily, watching his platforms for updates, then sharing that information with their audience.
Entertainers also fall under this category.
It’s important to note that all creators perform all 4 functions. The only difference is how highly they prioritise each in their content creation process.
Now do you see the cross-over I’m making?
They all follow a similar pattern. I’ll outline each part of the framework, along with which vehicles in the creator formula they align with.
Passion — Aligns with AI Tools (also involved in profit)
Platform — Aligns with social media
Profit — Aligns with the many monetisation methods available on the internet.
#1 Passion (AI Tools) — they start talking about the thing they enjoy a lot, creating interesting and engaging content via AI tools to create large amounts of content in short periods of time so they can keep their audience engaged.
This level is also called top-of-funnel.
Find a list of some AI tools that will boost your productivity in the attached annexure A or now in the video depending where you’re reading or listening to this.
#2 Platform — They build their audiences on social media platforms, ideally ones that have built-in monetisation features like YouTube and Substack. Even with this level, they still have subdivisions where they have their free content and their more premium stuff. This is usually how most people who enter the creator economy without prior experience making money start earning income, via AdSense and subscriptions.
Find a list of social media platforms with AdSense offers on Annexure B
#3 Profit — these are the additional methods that a creator uses to generate additional income. They do this either by selling their own products and services or someone else’s. There are also many methods to do this such as online courses, coaching and affiliate marketing. This stage is what separates those really top level creators from the rest of the creators who rely entirely on their platform’s monetisation. These creators build actual businesses from the audience they have by getting them off their main platform (top of funnel) and onto their email newsletter (lower funnel) the email newsletter is where the creator then runs their promotions and provides updates about the industry or their company or any news the customer might find relevant or useful.
The income difference between these creators and other creators is astounding. The creators who rely solely on AdSense and built-in monetisation make a decent income, within the $tens of thousands of even hundreds of thousands, but the creators who run build this framework for themselves have way more options to make money so they do make more. $Millions more per year, at an exponentially growing rate.
I’m not saying you should go try and make millions. (Not that you shouldn’t), but here’s how you can employ it for yourself as a synthesiser. It’s easiest for me to explain it this way right now but I’m sure in practical application, and with personality differences, you can become whichever kind of content creator you want.
Alex Hormozi gives this advice: give away the secrets, sell the implementation.
If you’re already running a business, or considering starting a business, you just start teaching your secrets for free. The things your customers pay you to do for them, either teach them how to do it or how it’s done.
This provides free value to your audience, they pay you with attention, shares and comments and because you’re explaining a service you offer, you can casually mention that they can book you to do it once in a while!!.
Another way you can make content is to simply make what you do more entertaining. No need to be exceptionally funny or have big budgets for equipment, just provide valuable content.
You’ll have to use the content style that dominates the platform you’ve chosen to be on. Currently short form content is easiest to get views on without much promotion on your part, however it’s more competitive. Longer content may be harder to make, but it shows you know what you’re talking about and there are fewer content creators to compete with.
(Passion + Platform)
Next, you offer people a free piece of exclusive content in exchange for their email addresses. This is called a Lead Magnet. This is you removing them off the platform so you can send email newsletters specifically for your business campaigns. The people who give you their emails are more likely to buy anyway since they trust your free content enough to be curious about the premium stuff.
(Productize)
If you have a business, once you have their emails, you can start contacting them offering your services or raise their awareness of your products over time. Here is the place to shamelessly plug your products. You can talk about them too in your free content, but your email newsletter is primarily to make people aware of the deeper levels of your concepts, increase interest in your products and become customers.
You don’t even need to hit the platform’s monetisation requirements this way because you can convert your few viewers into customers. Another thing is sometimes you’ll have content that performs really well, way more than your subscriber count, but they don’t subscribe. In those cases, some of those people would still buy your product even if they aren’t interested in following your brand yet. Hence, every piece of content should have a monetisation play.
If you don’t already have a business, the way you can employ this is by creating content in order to get people interested in your products before you make them. If for example you’re considering starting a cosmetics brand, you can start talking about cosmetics, teaching about the lesser known things you know to showcase and increase your expertise. This raises your viewers’ awareness and loyalty to you so that when you finally launch your own cosmetics product, they’re like FINALLY!!
If you’re wondering, “how do I launch a product without money?” That’s where the e-commerce portion of this formula comes into play.
There a variety of e-commerce platforms that allows you to sell products through them, all you have to do is list the product. For example, print-on-demand or Gig-platforms. Another way you can monetise without cash is by selling things that don’t require (lots of) money to make. This can be other people’s content, your own AI creations, access, digital products (personal fav) etc.
These “no money” products, can be sold in order to get the initial chunk of money that will help you stock up on your first few batches of cosmetics products.
Find examples of the creator formula for different businesses and interests in Annexure C.
Annexure C:
Creator Framework Example 1:
Bakery Creator Formula — How to make money as a baker online.
So you have a *PASSION* and talent for baking. You wish you could do it, without it taking up all your waking hours. You feel like you’ve hit a ceiling in terms of your earnings and you just wanna figure out how to keep loving it while doing it.
The problem with most brick and mortar businesses is they lack leverage. They work so hard, but once the work is done and payment received, the reward ends there.
One way that any physical location business can earn leverage for itself is through content.
If they document every contract, and also make it an interesting piece of content to watch they can build their credibility on a large scale, not just by relying on word -of mouth, customer referrals or the one customer they just helped.
Passion + Platform + Productize
AI Tools + Socials + e-Commerce
You can start by
1. Posting interesting, engaging, helpful content regularly to a social *PLATFORM* like YouTube & Facebook. Once or twice a week a video and article explaining your process, or the next experiment or any topic that seems or can be made interesting.
2. Boost your posts either with cheap ads or sharing them into relevant groups across the (entire) internet to gain a following.
3. Network directly with other people in the bakery Niche and help promote each other.
You can create content quickly and easily using tools like ChatGPT and other AI media generators for video, image, voice, music, graphics, etc. And most of these tools have either a very generous free plan or a free trial of 2 weeks+.
You can do most things, even beyond content with just Canva, tho. It’s the single best platform any content creator can use right now. It has every other tool within it.
Now that you’ve covered Passion & Platform, you get into *Productising*.
If you saw Annexure C, you’ll notice many options for how to monetise your audience. For this example let’s go with:
1 — Your existing business
2 — A course teaching your recipes and other tips
3- Coaching or consulting people 1-on-1 on how to bake like you.
4 — An online school where you teach people how to bake hosted via platform like Skool or even on the social platform you’re already using under the membership/subscription feature.
5 — Freelancing. After building a personal brand and establishing credibility, you charge extra for people to book you personally to bake for them.
6 — merchandise — no personal brand can go wrong with merchandise
7 — Affiliate to physical products related to baking. This would be another great way for you to make content, by showcasing both your business and someone else’s. They pay you to advertise for them and you also get paid from them selling.
By doing this, you’ll be able to fulfil your love of baking without becoming a slave to your business and in time, you can scale more easily once you have some more free time, energy and money.
Creator Framework Example 2: Hairdresser
Hairdresser Creator Formula — How to make money as a hairdresser online.
As discussed in the last section, content is a Necessary tool in order for you to grow your business.
Here as well, you will make high quality content of your work and other experiments you do, while providing lessons along the way and giving away info and maybe even digital tools for free that your viewers can use on their own.
Share that content on 2 platforms: one longform streaming site like YouTube and one shortform site like TikTok or Threads. This also depends partly on whether you’ll be writing or speaking.
On both platforms, funnel people to your products and services by mentioning how you’re available for bookings and the other things you sell.
The ways you can monetise here are:
1. Your own services as a freelance hairdresser (to a specific market like influencers or artists)
2. One-on-one or group lessons
3. Branded hair care products (your own or affiliated)
4. Courses, ebooks or books teaching how to do what you do, or even more advanced hair techniques that aren’t in your free content.
5. Membership community where people can interact with you reguly, ask for your insights, you provide extra value beyond the lessons, courses, content and even go as far a personally coaching them. This is something you’ll refine as you do it and receive feedback from your customers.
6. Agency (in time) — once you’ve taught a few people your techniques, most of whom have paid you to do so, you can high from your audience. They’re also the likeliest people to understand your brand vision and there’s less onboarding work to do with someone who has watched your content for months/years.
With this one, your viewer becomes your customer, then, if they’re interested, becomes your employee/contractor.
Creator Framework Example 3: Painter
Creator Formula — How to make money as a Painter online.
Many micro-restaurants around Soweto prefer to use big bold painting to advertise their menus on their walls. It’s impossible to steal and unlikely to be damaged out of spite.
The art and signs people who do the paintings also rely primarily on recurring customers, word of mouth and outreach to gain revenue. Basically always being worried about where their next meal is coming from.
If you’re a painter looking to gain more leverage with your work, start documenting it. Teach your techniques, Create your before and after as videos, edit them in an engaging way, grow a following on 2 platforms.
Ways you can monetise:
1. Your own services (targeted towards a high-leverage audience)
2. Teach more advanced techniques or offer more personal lessons online
3. Courses and books teaching your methods and philosophies
4. Affiliate marketing for painting-related products
5. Offering your services on gig platforms like Fiverr or Upwork
6. Your own painting-related physical products.
I think I’m beginning to repeat myself so lemme switch it up.
Passion Platform Productise
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Creator Framework Example 4: Psychiatrist
Creator Formula — How to make money as a Psychiatrist online.
Psychology is one of the highest-paying niches on YouTube because people have really fucked up lives out here.
Pain is the most evergreen busiess Niche and in 2024, there is A LOT of pain.
Why do you think people drink so much and call it a “lifestyle”. No one is truly a fan of alcohol, we’re all just running from our thoughts.
That said, there’s really no reason for anyone with any kind of psycho-social qualification to be broke. People are willing to do anything to escape their demons and the great thing is as a qualified professional, you’re already credible.
You don’t even need to learn marketing and sales, you just get on a camera/microphone and start talking about the thing you know best. A lot. And often.
As long as you make people aware how they can get in touch with you and pay you after watching your video or reading your article, you will make bank.
There are small and large channels on YouTube in various psychology niches. Even these small channels with boma 200 subscribers are making $THOUSANDS every month from the services and products they offer.
They may not have enough subscribers to qualify for monetisation, but they’re tackling topics that get high views, so of course not every person who buys will subscribe and vice versa.
If you’re someone in these kinda of professions you might not be motivated by money so I won’t talk about how you’ll charge. I’ll just outline a framework for execution.
So anyway, now that I’ve sold you this “dream” let’s see how you will make it a reality.
1. Start posting content regularly, study other people in similar niches to see how they create their content, then make your videos better than them either in terms of education, production or entertainment. Bonus points if you do all 3. Extra bonus points if your content references your own experience with the problem and solving it for different people as well.
2. Grow your platform intentionally. Share your content across the internet. You don’t need to post on every platform, just comment your short or the link to your videos in relevant comment sections on as many social media as possible.
Ways you can productise:
1 — Offer your services on online therapy platforms like Betterhelp and connectable life
2 — Offer your services on general gig platforms like Clickworkers and Fiverr
3 — Have your own membership community where you take only a very few patients that you’ll give special attention to.
4 — Have a membership community where you teach others what you know.
5 — Software (long term)
6 — Agency (long term)
7 — Courses where you record what you know and sell it as a pack of videos and PDFs.
8 — Psychology -related affiliate products.
All businesses will look pretty similar in the next 5 years.
Passion + Platform = Productize
Creator Framework Example 5 student :
Creator Formula — How to make money online as a student
In school, you study daily but no one sees it. So no one has any idea how good you are at the thing you study.
If you document yourself studying, or document the things you’re studying as you learn them, by the time you graduate, you have a digital profile to refer potential employers to so they can give you either learnerships, or because you’ve already built some credibility, an actual position.
Say, for example you’re a law student
1. Start by teaching what you’re learning in class, with your own interesting spin on it. Bonus points if you can make it relevant to an event that’s currently trending.
You can even go beyond just what you learn in class because it’s limited to your country, and start talking about legal systems in other countries, hypothetical legal systems, old legals, theoretical legal systems that have been considered but never implemented, interesting cases from history and the present, etc.
I think you get the gist. There’s a lot of content you could make.
2. Make your content stand out by injecting your own personality, making it more educational, better quality or more entertaining.
Post consistently and boost every post. (not necessarily with paid methods)
How you can productise (before you’re qualified)
1. Membership community where other students get exclusive access to your help with studying
2. Software that does regular updates on the relevant legal frameworks in the country(long term)
3. Online law firm/agency where you connect people with legal problems to relevant people with legal solutions (long term)
4. Affiliate marketing for relevant law
5. Interning either online or on-site (fairly simple since you’ve built some credibility)
Once you graduate:
1. Courses and memberships where you teach what you’ve learned.
2. Get certified as a notary so you can give legally qualify your students for the stuff you teach them. (you did a 4 year course, you can teach them parts of it for a much lower price and for a more specific field of expertise.
3. Your own (online) firm/agency. After build your audience throughout school and your business from agency if you went that route. You can get referrals from your old clients and contractors or take your clients and contractors from their existing firms.
You can host this online firm on an e-learning platform like Skool.
I’ll do 2 more and squash this article.
Creator Framework Example 6: Programmer
Creator Formula — How to make money online as a Programmer
This is a highly coveted skill, everybody understands the necessity of understanding technology and the people building the technology have the best footing to make more than anybody.
With this understood, if you have some knowledge of programming, that’s what you could teach by explaining from the basics and via your own examples.
Even if you don’t focus on getting clients at first and focus more on building an audience, if you mention in your videos that you’re available to perform the service or you have a book/course that can teach them more extensive things, you’re likely to get a sale within your first thousand views. Everybody needs to either how to code or to use code in their life/business.
Step by step here it is
1 — Post engaging content about programming
2 — Boost your posts by sharing them into relevant groups.
How you can productise
1 — Programming course (either done-with-you or do-it-yourself)
2 — Offer your services as a programmer
3 — Freelance on gig platforms
4 — Affiliate products related to programming
5 — one-on-one or group coaching
6 — software in whatever market needs a problem solved.
7 — Membership community
8 — Agency where people hire other Programmers from you.
If you’ll notice in these articles I have a strong bias for products that basically exist in our minds.
Handling physical products doesn’t really appeal to me. Low profit margins, high risk of complaints, expensive to produce, etc.
So I haven’t mentioned merch much. But always remember, you can sell merch too.
Even then you don’t need to own any stock, just have some cool designs, then handle the rest with print-on-demand companies (and a cool landing page. )
Creator Framework Example 7:
Creator Formula — How to make money online as a TV Expert
Content creation isn’t a skill on its own. Content consumption is its own skill too.
If you’re someone who LOVES watching anime or movies like my younger self, you can make a living from that too.
Before social media, critics only existed as journalists and a few people who could afford to build and own a blog. Now, anybody can be a critic. That’s why comment sections on viral content are always buzzing.
Everyone wants their opinion heard and to discuss the things that deeply impact them like that Red Wedding scene from Game of Thrones or the time Luffy reached Gear 5 and we met JoyBoy, or the time that OnlyFans superstar got all her implants removed.
You’re already talking about these things, why not talk about them at scale. Talk about them on a platform that will pay you for doing so. There are already people getting millions of views just talking about cool movies.
Granted, entertainment related niches usually don’t pay so well via AdSense, but that’s not a problem for the Creator Formula.
Step by step here we go
Sthephu One — Talk about the shows you like, give updates on the industry, reviews, comparisons, etc. create engaging content.
You can also legally use some TV/movie content in your videos under fair use conditions.
Sthephu Two — boost your posts on all platforms after posting them on your main platforms
How you can productise
1. Channel memberships
2. Brand deals with movie studios to promote their new movies +
3. Affiliate to newly released movies so every time they are bought or watched from your link you get a commission.
4. Merchandise about popular movies
5. Monetise public domain/royalty free movies.
6. Movie BETA tester, watching movies before they’re released and reviewing them.
7. Movie BETA tester agency where movie studios hire BETA testers from you to review their movies. (long term)
That’s it for this edition of the Creator Framework. I hope you got some value and insight out of these long essays, Esé.
Thanks for reading/watching this far.
If you wanna set up your own creator framework for one of the things I’ve mentioned in this essay or something else, but it feels kinda overwhelming, like it’s too much work, DM me either here or on
Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/brill_eargasm/
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https://www.youtube.com/@swixdon
I’ll see you in the next one, Peace
